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Next Limit ships RealFlow 10.1

Next Limit has released RealFlow 10.1, a sizeable free update to its fluid simulation app, adding new viscous and viscoelastic materials to the Dyverso multiphysics solver, plus the option to mask out parts of a sim.

The update actually came out last week, but we only spotted it when Next Limit posted the link on its forum.

Dyverso solvers get new controls; new viscous and viscoelastic fluid materials
For a free update that comes just five months after the release of RealFlow 10, there are a surprising number of new features in RealFlow 10.1.

Next Limit itself describes it as “not just a boring bugfix … we think that many users would even call this 10.5”.

Top of the features list are the changes to Dyverso, RealFlow’s GPU-based solver architecture, with the Position Based Dynamics solver, SPH fluid solver and granular solver all getting an update.

New features include a tensile strength parameter, aimed at fluids with high surface tension, plus a self-descriptive vorticity boost option; while the old external pressure parameter has been streamlined.

The Dyverso multiphysics solver added in RealFlow 10.0 also gets new viscous and viscoelastic materials: features mentioned in the original marketing material but now, it seems, officially supported.

Fluid masking and new filtering options
Other new features include fluid masking, which enables users to exclude parts of a fluid volume from a simulation without literally having to reshape the container to remove them.

Next Limit describes the system as making it possible to “model your particle volume … without having to adjust or revisit the surrounding container object”.

The Filter daemon, which enables users to swap particles from one container to another – for example, to cull unwanted parts of a fluid – gets a new randomness parameter, and the option to filter by emitter ID.

New animation control panels, updates to node cloning and the Particle Skinner daemon
Other changes include the addition of a parameter panel to every Alembic node, and a new SD parameter panel, both of which can be used to offset or adjust the timing of imported animations.

Support for cloning nodes has also been greatly expanded, with copied objects now retaining their hierarchies, connections to other nodes, and export settings.

In addition, RealFlow 10.0’s Particle Skinner daemon, which transfers the motion of a particle system to geometry objects, has now had its “chief limitation” removed, and also now works with cached particles.

Pricing and availability
RealFlow 10.1 is out now for 64-bit Windows 7+, Mac OS X 10.9+ and Linux.

The update is free to registered users. New node-locked licences of RealFlow 10 now costs $1,095; a floating licence costs $1,295. Both prices include one simulation node. One year’s premium support costs $645.

Other bundles containing different numbers of workstation and simulation nodes are also available.